About Price Gouging . . .

This has nothing to do with my private forest, except when I'm the Price Gougee it means I have less money to buy more trees for my forest and to water and care for those that I already have.

Price Gouging goes something like this. As a propane customer, I have the option of pre-buying my estimated gallon usage for the year every July. I've done so in the past because I can lock in a set price (in case prices go up . . . gee, do you think they might?) for the whole year. This year, I was offered a pre-buy price of $2.799/gallon of propane. Now that's higher than the current price of $2.439 from the same company. Problem is, I can't buy all that I'd need for this winter now at the current price. Anyway, back to *gouging*. This year, the company headquarters decided to tack on a $25.00 fee on top of the cost of fuel, the fee being, I assume, for the honor of pre-paying a winter's supply of propane.

So, I did what any red-blooded American would do.....I changed propane companies. Tomorrow the new company is going to unhook the current tank and set one of their tanks in its place, fill it with however much propane I want, and have me as a new customer.

Oh, yeah, back to the *gouging*. The company I'm leaving is going to charge me a $30 fee for 'removing their tank.' Now, that's what I call gouging at it's very best.

So, Amerigas, you get the 2007 prize for the most inventive gouging.